And we begin again! :)

Wow! Where did the time go?  I had no idea that it had been so long since my last post!  My deepest apologies to all who follow my blog.

June in our school is extremely important with many oral evaluations being done to see how our students have progressed in their language learning.  This is indeed time consuming but very very worthwhile. 

Have you ever heard your students tell you that they can't say anything in your target language?  That day is not one that you want to hear!  Our department goal for our students this year is to truly work on the oral speaking component of our subject area and to reinforce to our students that they do indeed know a great deal and that with a little bit of effort they can prove it to themselves! :) 

How do you get 30+ students in a class to practise enough?  One of my ways is to do "market place".  I have a couple of different versions of this at my store with varying topics.  They are not long activities but give the students the opportunities to get out of their seats and speak with other students in the class with a focus on a specific topic or language component.

Another favorite of mine is the round table oral activity.  This can be done with any topic that you are working with! My younger students are learning to talk about themselves.  We started with very basic questions and learned and reviewed the information needed to answer these questions.  By the end of September I am going to show these students just how much they can say about themselves only after the first month of classes!   The round table activity allows students to practise these questions.  Student #1 asks the person to their right a question.  Student #2 answers the question.  He then turns to student #3 and asks a different question.  Students #3 answers it and then turns to student #4 to ask another different question.  Each student continues to do this until they have asked and answered all of the target questions.  Brainstorming the questions before beginning the activity further solidifies their knowledge! 

Have fun with this!!  Students will learn more about each other while practising their speaking skills!